"Welcome to Seraph's Armoury," The introduction came a split second after the door was opened, "how may I help you today?"
The voice was originally very upbeat and enthusiastic, however the woman's voice began to slow and trail off at the last few words. For how young the voice had sounded the woman was extremely tall and had a number of scars, that looked like burn marks, across her face. She had grey hair which was pulled neatly back in a single pony tail, her eyes were bright green and she seemed to be wearing a pale blue dress which fell below the counter top.
She stood behind the counter looking at us with a very obvious look of disappointment and a slight glimmer of annoyance in her eyes. She directed her gaze onto Val, who was in front of us and was smiling profusely. "Last time you brought back an angry dragon. This time, you bring back what looks like three newbies about 6 hours before you were even supposed to be back in the province," She said in a very hard tone.
"Love you too Lilith," Was Val's response. At this she sighed, shook her head and sat down on the chair behind her. "The time with the dragon wasn't even my fault. Just because I borrowed some of the shiny objects in its cave doesn't really give it reason to chase me all this way." After saying this he seemed to nod to himself, move to the side a little, and beckon us further indoors. Sky was the first to move forward, with me and Aurora close behind.
"Time for introductions people," Val said, once again in a thick theatrical accent.
"Without another Shakespeare impression, if you please Val," Lilith said with a slight laugh to herself, "Well, who are these people then?"
"Always the charmer you are. Right here we have three Sword Art Online players. The fiery one in the front is named Sky, the other lovely lady goes by the name Aurora. Leaving the aptly named Undine player, Terra," Val seemed to have ignored Lilith's comment and gone with what seemed his normal way of talking now. During the introduction I noticed Sky narrow her eyes and cross her arms, seemingly not impressed by Val.
"And what are SAO players doing in my shop?" Lilith asked, no longer in a disapproving manner but with genuine interest, seemingly the mention of SAO had piqued her curiosity.
"We're looking for what you seem to call Fallen Knights," Sky answered Lilith's question before Val could even open his mouth, "Val said that he could supply us with some equipment and maybe some information." I noticed that she spoke with a much harsher tone than I had ever heard from her.
At the mention of the Fallen Knights Lilith's eyes seemed to flare with light and she leaned forward. "If you're looking for knights I can provide both equipment and information, under the condition that I join the expedition to find them. But I must warn you, that some of the best raiding guilds and even faction armies have been taken down by some of these things."
"As long as you can get us each a reasonable set of armour and weapons you can do as you wish. How long will it take to make the equipment and do you have anywhere we can stay while we wait?" Sky's tone only seemed to get more and more frustrated as the conversation went on and she gave neither me or Aurora a say in the conversation before agreeing to let this stranger join us.
"Give me a day to sort out all of the gear. There's a room in the back of the shop and there's probably space for someone to set up for the night in the old forge building out back," Lilith seemed pleased with what had just passed, however brief the exchange was. She then looked towards Val, "Unless there's anything else that needs doing, I suppose you had better show them to their rooms."
Val seemed a little put out by being told what to do, but with a slight sigh raised his shoulders and looked at the three of us, "Well, is there anything else you want to ask? Considering how bluntly the conversation has already gone." This secondary comment was met with hard looks from both Sky and Lilith, but all of us remained silent. There wasn't anything of urgent importance that I could think to ask and I wanted a place to stop so that I could go through my inventory and skill list anyway.
"Nothing, well follow me to the back then." At saying this Val seemed to puff up his chest slightly and began his way to the door behind the counter. With the conversation at an end, Lilith seemed to have lost any interest in the rest of the people in the room and had brought up a number of inventory panels which floated around her head. The three of us, once again followed Val, with Sky at the front, through another door and into a narrow hallway.
"Well the spare room is down the hall and the first door on the left. As for the spare forge thing, I'll show you the way in," Val said in a strangely normal voice for him.
Sky stopped and looked over her shoulder at me and Aurora, "You two can have the room, I'll take the other option." I noticed once again that the harshness in her voice was still present, almost sounding as if she were in some form of pain.
"Thanks," Aurora said in a quiet voice before Sky turned back around and stepped in line behind Val, who very promptly kept on moving forward.
There was only a few wooden, brass handled doors on the right hand side of the hallway before we reached an identical door on the left hand side, presumably the room we were intended to stay in. Val and Sky had already walked past it, but Aurora came to a stop and looked at the door for a second before opening it. The room was surprisingly large, with a double bed in the centre of the room, a writing desk and chair placed below a window and a large wardrobe in the far corner of the room.
Aurora went straight towards the bed which she sat down on and looked at me expectantly. I closed the door behind me and went to sit down next to Aurora, who quickly took hold of my hand.
"Maybe coming back here wasn't such a bad idea. This place seems more real than the hospital that we live in and we just flew over a huge forest with fairy wings," She spoke much clearer than earlier, but no louder.
"It may not have been such a bad idea for us, but Sky seems impatient and unusually angry about something." I voiced my concern wanting to see whether Aurora agreed.
"Great way to ruin the mood, talk about another woman," Aurora said with a small laugh, "She'll be all right once we start doing something. In the meantime how about we figure out this new game a bit more, sort out skills and our inventories." As she said this I heard a slight fluttering of wings behind me.